Will.i.am, Kahoot and ElevenLabs founders back AI powered literacy platform imagi
imagi has raised a $4.5 million seed round led by Brighteye Ventures and Day One Capital, with participation from FemInvest and We Are Human, fronted by the founders of Kahoot.
Operating across more than 100 school districts in all US states, including the Hawaii Department of Education, imagi’s platform offers K-12 students direct, supervised access to AI tools, within a curriculum designed to build genuine AI literacy. By partnering with OpenAI and Lovable, the startup claims to structure classroom AI teaching with safety guardrails.
The funding round also includes a group of angels spanning founders, operators, and educators, including ElevenLabs founder Mati Staniszewski, former GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke and Voi CEO and Co-founder Fredrik Hjelm. Singer Will.i.am and serial entrepreneurs Sophia Amoruso and Simon Squibb also participated in the round, alongside leaders from OpenAI, Spotify and Lovable. imagi also received investment from Morgan Stanley and Sparkmind Capital.
The company was established by co-founders Dora Palfi (CEO) and Beatrice Ionascu (CTO), following a research project conducted at KTH University in Stockholm. It doubled down on US K-12 education in 2024. It is headquartered in New York with a team spanning the US, UK, Sweden, and Finland. In November 2025, imagi added Sari Hurme-Mehtälä to its leadership team as Chief Growth Officer. She sold her company Kide Science to Accelerate Learning, becoming the first Nordic EdTech company to make an exit to the US.
Palfi says: “Today's schoolchildren are the first generation who will never know a world without AI. This means AI education won’t just be the new ICT, but the new literacy. But unlike reading schemes, AI is not designed with children in mind. This means we need safe, tested AI education for children, with guardrails trusted by educators and parents. AI is accelerating faster than any technology before, which is why we cannot bury our heads in the sand, and ignore the need to introduce children to AI in a responsible way. Working already with Lovable and OpenAI, we’ve engaged hundreds of thousands of young people, and with our latest funding and ever growing roster of partners, we hope to give millions more access to safe frontier AI tools.”
"Within weeks of introducing imagi into my classroom, my students weren't just building apps for educational purposes, but for their friends, for their families, and for anyone with a problem that needed solving. Seeing the shift in their mindsets from consumers to creators is the true power of AI in education. With imagi, I knew my students were learning in a safe, structured environment, where trust is an imperative," says Lisa Haines, STEM Teacher, Indiana.
"imagi sits at the intersection of two of the most important trends in education: the mainstreaming of AI and the urgent need for structured, safe digital literacy," says Benoit Wirz, Founding Partner at Brighteye Ventures. "Dora, Sari and Beatrice have built a product that schools can actually trust, and the traction they've achieved so far speaks for itself."
Zsolt Weiszbart, Partner at Day One Capital, comments: “Providing the next generation with safe access to AI tools supervised by educators is imperative. They will be at the forefront of the technological change AI is bringing, and imagi has already delivered this for hundreds of thousands of young people across the globe. We look forward to supporting them as they continue to scale pedagogically sound access to frontier AI tools.”
“Teaching young people coding and computing has often lagged behind the pace of technological change,” says Fabian Hedin, Co-founder at Lovable. “In the AI era, students and teachers keep on asking if software engineering will even exist in the future. Software development is transforming, not disappearing, and we’re glad to be partnering with imagi to ensure that the first truly AI native generation can safely learn about the cutting edge of technology."
Laura Modiano, Head of Founder Experience, Global at OpenAI, adds: "The goal of education has always been to help young people succeed in the world they're growing into, and today learning to navigate AI should be at the very top of the agenda. imagi’s technology will help make high quality AI teaching available to every student.”
2026 RTIH Innovation Awards
AI will be a key focus area at our sister title RTIH’s 2026 Innovation Awards.
The awards are now open for entries and celebrate global retail technology innovation in a fast moving omnichannel world.
Our winners will be revealed at the 2026 RTIH Innovation Awards Ceremony, taking place at The HAC in Central London on Wednesday, 4th November.
Check out the 2025 winners here.
Our 2025 hall of fame entrants were revealed during a sold out event which took place at The HAC on 16th October and consisted of a drinks reception, three course meal, and awards ceremony presided over by award winning comedian, actress and writer Tiff Stevenson.
In his welcome speech, Scott Thompson, Founder and Editor, RTIH, said: “This is the awards’ fifth year as a physical event. We started off with just 30 people at the South Place Hotel not far from here, then moved to London Bridge Hotel, then The Barbican, and last year RIBA’s HQ in the West End.”
“But I’m conscious of the fact that, to quote the legend that is Taylor Swift, You’re only as hot as your last hit, baby. So, this year we’ve moved to our biggest venue yet, and also pulled in our largest number of entries to date and broken attendance records.”
He added: “This year’s submissions have without doubt been our best yet. To quote one of the judges: The examples of innovative developments across both traditional and digital retail spaces were truly remarkable.”
Congratulations to our winners, and a big thank you to our sponsors, judging panel, the legend that is Tiff Stevenson, and all those who attended our 2025 gathering.
